District sells first batch of ECC land

Creston School Board approved the sale of a parcel of land adjacent to the Early Childhood Center Monday night. This sale is the first of many proposed sales, as the school prepares for an ECC addition to the Elementary/Middle School building across town.

Keystone Equity Group, LLC paid Garden Associates for a land survey before requesting to purchase 5.41 acres of property from the school district. At $12,000 an acre, Keystone Equity Group will pay a total of $64,920 for the land formerly known as the practice fields.

According to the Des Moines Register, Des Moines-based Keystone Equity Group was founded by Khoa Bui about eight years ago. The home development company has residential areas in De Soto and Perry already.

Local real estate broker Ruth Bolinger objected to the sale during a public hearing, saying the information provided by the district to the public was confusing.

“I don’t know there was a lot of equity around people being aware that you were going to start the actual sale of this property,” Bolinger said. “I understand that the district was approached, I understand why, I understand that we have a housing shortage and that’s a problem.”

Bolinger also issued doubts surrounding the purchaser and the purchase agreement.

“He should be disclosing that he’s an agent, for one thing,” Bolinger said. “The other thing is, this is a green space. It has been mowed and maintained. I think if you look at the other properties he’s been involved with, I walked across one and it’s worse than walking across a hay field. They’re not maintained.”

Bolinger said she’s concerned with the district being responsible for special assessments after the closing.

“This developer historically goes for TIF projects, there’s a number of other ways that those developments get financed and funded,” Bolinger said. “I would hate to see the neighbors here have some kind of shared situation where we have some big surprise and there’s a big assessment associated with the project going in here.”

Superintendent Deron Stender explained that everything the district has done has been with the recommendation and approval of their legal counsel. The district came into contact with Keystone Equity Group through Creston Housing Director Ethan Standard.

“He is the person that works with these developers for the city of Creston, working on bringing housing development into our community,” Stender said. “I put faith in the city housing director that we hired to have conversations with the district for interest in property and development of property, in good faith that it’s going to be for the best of the community.

The board will be looking to sell various other land parcels as progress continues with the ECC addition.

In other school board news...

Stender expects the food service procedures to change once the ECC moves to the new building in 2025. Food is currently shuttled to the ECC and Greater Connections. Once the ECC is moved, the district will likely not shuttle food anymore. However, they are open to Greater Connections picking up food from the school. The goal in this is to have more hands in the kitchen, as they are very short staffed.

The school board approved the May 2024 list of contracts and resignations.

Resignations: Shannon Preston, crossing guard; Tawny Stauffer, para; Brenna Baker, K-5 art teacher (end of 23-24 school year); Nancy Wantland, cook; Aaron Riley, MS art teacher (end of 23-24 school year).

Contracts: Lindsey LeGrand, 1st grade teacher (24-25 school year); Nancy Wantland, custodian; Marge Welch, HS science teacher (24-25 school year); Antton Zauxu Hernandez, HS Spanish teacher (24-25 school year); Charles Rushing, student interventionist (24-25 school year); Corissa Sundquist, preschool teacher’s assistant (24-25 school year); Nevaeh Randall, 7th/8th grade assistant softball coach; Garrison Carter, HS assistant football coach; Carmalee Woods, head 7th grade volleyball coach; Chris Tibbels, 9th grade assistant softball coach; Cora Ostrem, head 7th grade softball coach; Naomi Sharp, HS head volleyball coach.

Terminations: Casidy Cavanaugh, cook.